In the Winter Night
by labonsoirfemme
Summary: During a winter gathering with the Shenandoah Clan, Bellamy makes a grand gesture. Or: How the promise of a new cloak is about 10x more romantic a few years after Exodus than anyone would have expected. [Bellarke]


[Title from "King and Lionheart" by Of Monsters and Men.]

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><p>Monty's hooch only improves with time. Whether he's been perfecting the recipe or perfecting the apparatus, Clarke doesn't know, nor does she really care. With her eyes on the raucous party going on at the bottom of the hill below, she lifts her cup to her mouth and takes a sip. It's so much smoother than it used to be, but she still tastes its kick through the sweet veil of the Shenandoah clan's apple cider. They'd brought a dozen casks of it as a host gift in addition to the spring-born lambs required by the trade agreement Bellamy had ironed out a few months before.<p>

Speaking of: his familiar head of wild black curls breaks the outer edge of the winter equinox celebration and heads up the little knoll on which Clarke stands. His head is all that Clarke can identify him by; the rest of his body is swathed in a massive buckskin cloak. It's a grounder style, and Bellamy is the first to take it on. As he gets closer, moonlight replaces firelight and gives him a cooler, adequately-wintery glow.

"What're you doing up here?" he asks, joining her at the top of the hill. "I thought I pulled you from guard duty tonight."

"You did." Clarke turns on her heel and looks out towards the woods. The sheep and goats have gone into their barn for the night, leaving a wide and empty field of darkness before the treeline rises from the ground. "I was taking a bit of a walk. It's nice tonight."

Of course, as soon as she says this, a sharp wind whips Clarke's hair into her face and cuts through the weave of her poncho. A visible shiver shakes her body and Bellamy chuckles.

"Cold?"

Clarke shakes her head, because it had been a passing chill, really, but Bellamy's already moving behind her and draping the flaps of his buckskin cloak over her shoulders. It's a massive thing, meant to double as a blanket or thin mattress if needed, so she's able to hold the front closed at her throat without any trouble at all. The edges are lined with rabbit fur to keep out sneaky chills, and the soft fur tickles her cheeks and neck.

Behind her, Bellamy shifts his stance and pulls Clarke back into his chest and wraps an arm around her waist. His other hand, holding his hooch, sneaks out a side arm slit and travels over Clarke's head and to his mouth.

"Wow," Clarke murmurs after a few minutes. "This is _really_ warm."

Bellamy chuckles—a rumble against her back. "Fucking fantastic, right? I'll make one for you."

Maybe it's the hooch, or maybe it's the hooch plus the embrace he's got her in, or maybe it's all that plus the stolen, never-discussed kisses and accidental co-sleeping ending in accidental pre-dawn cuddling they've been doing over the past year that makes Clarke tease: "Really? You'd make one just for little old me?"

He huffs against her ear, one of his Grumpy Old Man sounds that lets Clarke know that he's on the verge of being embarrassed and is about to double down, come hell or high water. "I said I would, didn't I? It's not complicated or anything."

Clarke drops her head back onto his shoulder and rolls her eyes back to catch his profile. Even in the dim light, he's able to cut his gaze down and meet hers. She gives him a sly smile. "It's not like we have a lot of hides lying around this time of year. So, you're going to hunt the deer? The rabbits, too?"

"I'll have to snare the rabbits."

"And skin them and tan them?"

"And skin them and tan them." His voice is low and rough from shouting and hollering; Clarke sigh-shudders a bit at the sound of it so close.

"And sew them all together, just for me?"

"Just for you, Princess." His mouth twists a bit, but his eyes stay soft and his arm tightens around her waist. She melts back into him even further and something inside her trills when she feels his muscles twitch against her back to account for the shifting weight. Then his head tilts and Clarke twists her neck to meet his mouth. It's still sweet from the dried fruit they'd feasted on for dessert. "You act so surprised," he teases, teeth gentle on the shell of her ear when her muscles cramp and she has to break away.

The sensation is foreign and _nice_ and Clarke gasps in sharp winter air at the feel of it. "Easy, I've got you." But his mouth is doing wicked, wicked things to her neck now, sucking and lapping and leaving wet spots to chill in the air and giving her a knee-quivering contrast to the heat of his mouth—he'd brushed his lips over her neck before, but the _back _of it, while tucked behind her, not the side, nor under her ear and _oh_—

Thanks to the voluminous folds of the cloak, Clarke turns easily in Bellamy's arms, dimly hears the muffled thud of his own cup hitting the frosted grass before his arms pull her up against him. Still, as much as she wants to shove her fingers into his hair, she also wants to stay cozy under the cloak, so she contents herself with sliding her hands under his arms and clutching him to her, sending her fingers tripping over his layers of shirts and sweaters until she meets warm, bare skin and Bellamy groans into her mouth. She pushes her hands as high as they'll go, spreads her fingers over the lower points of his scapulae.

"God, Clarke," he mutters against her chin, then her name again as he noses her head back so he can graze his teeth over the tender skin just below it. The stars twinkle above them, and she takes icy, shaking breaths as Bellamy nuzzles the corner of her jaw and presses wet kisses to her pulse just below. Behind him, sky people and grounders mill around the bonfires in the middle of the 100's camp, share meat and mead, and someone somewhere picks up a drum and begins to beat out a dance rhythm.

It echoes in her ears, beating counter to her own heartbeat, and she lets her eyes slip closed to drink in the feel of him—the rises and troughs of his vertebrae, the divots above his belt, the layer of well-fed softness between his skin and obliques that hadn't been there a few years ago. His lips are smooth against hers, too, thanks to them being able to spare beeswax and animal fat for lip and skin care. The fingers slipping under her shirt are calloused, though – no amount of homemade lotion would take away the wear of bowstrings and manual labor. Clarke doesn't think she minds; she feels goosebumps prickle in the wake of his caresses over her lower back.

Distantly, as Bellamy tilts his head and slides his tongue into her mouth, Clarke is relieved that this isn't the first time they'd kissed, otherwise she'd be freaking out and likely overthinking everything. (_The hooch is helping, too_, she reminds herself.) But it's _Bellamy_ and he just makes it easy and earnest, sighing and humming when she gives as good as she gets.

Still, she wants to touch more than just his back and kiss more than just his mouth and jaw, but they can't do that out here, even if his buckskin cloak is, as he said, fucking fantastic. "Bell." She pulls back and takes in his kissed-full lips and flushed cheeks. His hand rides the curve of her ass, his thumb tracing maddening circles on the flesh of her hip. The solo drum has been joined by others and the rising, melodic voices of the grounders, and Clarke feels brave. "Let's go to bed."

She certainly hadn't expected him to argue, but maybe to be at least a bit surprised, but Bellamy just nods and kisses her again, tightens his grip to press her belly even more firmly against the hard length of his cock. "C'mon." He releases his hold on the cloak to let her slide from his arms and then takes her hand.

They keep to the shadows and ignore drunk revelers who hail them as they pass by. Bellamy's cabin is on the far side of the village, a timber-and-daub square with a thatched conical roof to let the smoke from his firepit escape. Clarke's cabin is closer, but she's shared it with Raven ever since it was built since Clarke seems to spend every other night in the medical longhouse, watching over one patient or another. Bellamy holds the buckskin flap aside for Clarke. She sighs with relief at the respite from the cold outside.

"Hold on—I'll get the door." He jerks his head at the rectangle of saplings lashed together with strips of hide leaning against the wall. It fits into a groove dug into the earth inside the doorway, overlaps the opening a bit on each side for stability, and is held in place with a wide plank set into hooks on either side of the doorway. While Bellamy takes care of that, Clark shucks her heavy woolen poncho and kneels by the firepit to blow on the live embers and set dry firewood on top of them.

Bellamy's cloak has its own hook by the door, and then he drops his own poncho on top of Clarke's. He drops into a crouch next to her and brushes her hair over her shoulder. "Warming up?"

In the growing firelight, she can see him better. His skin is shaved and scrubbed clean for the gathering; her knuckles glide smoothly over his jaw. With a twist of his head, he kisses the backs of her fingers. He and Octavia have long, black lashes, and Clarke is envious of the wide sweep of them across the tops of his high cheekbones. Her hand turns under his fingers so that he can kiss the center of her palm and then he rocks forward onto his knees and reaches for the zipper of her hoodie. The rasp of the teeth unlocking seems ten times louder than should be normal.

The muscle of his jaw twitches as his eyes follow the path of the tab over her chest and stomach. By the time the sides unclasp at the bottom and his eyes rise up to hers again, Clarke's breathing is short and shallow and she's restless for his hands on her again. "Bellamy," she starts, but he knows what she's thinking, cups her neck and brings their mouths together, hotter and fiercer than before. His other hand shoves a shoulder of her hoodie down and she feels him huff impatiently when he realizes the shirt beneath has sleeves, too.

In a haze of sloppy kisses and frantic hands, they peel her hoodie down her arms and her shirt over her head, then her tank, until she's just left in her breast bindings. It satisfies him for the moment, though, and his hands roam and clutch up and down her arms and her back as hungrily as his mouth moves against hers. Clarke fumbles with the toggle buttons of his heavy sweater and shoves that down his arms so that she only has to push her hand under two thin shirts to scrape her nails down his stomach and dip her thumb into his navel. His belly quivers under her hands and she can't help but smirk against his lips.

He nips her lip in rebuke. "Get this off," he mutters, flattening his palm over a covered breast before hopping to his feet to kick off his boots and peel off the rest of his clothes. Clarke's hands shake only a bit when she tugs the ends of her bindings free and pulls unwraps her chest. He's naked by the time she's done, and she can't help it—her gaze drops directly to his half-hard erection, bobbing a bit as he turns back towards her. "Christ, Clarke," he mutters, for his part, crouches down to catch her under her arms and haul her to her feet.

She follows his gaze and watches him cup her firelit breasts and thrum her nipples with his thumbs until they pebble up as tightly as they can go. "You've seen them before," she reminds him, though her voice comes out a bit more breathless than she'd like.

Bellamy just chuckles, hooks an arm around her back, and pushes at a breast to make it swell upwards. "Not like this." He drops his head and laps at the pale, sensitive flesh. "It's one thing to walk up on you bathing—" (with one river and 50+ inhabitants, it's a pretty common occurrence. They've all but given up on more than the barest sense of bathing privacy. Respectable distances and a no-staring rule is really all they can ask for) "—it's another to see them go all hard like this because you want me."

He says it with a wolfish grin and a wink, but his hands and lips are gentle, using only the barest hints of teeth. Clarke skims her fingertips across his shoulders and down his chest, tracing his scars and tendons from joint to joint. Bellamy loosens his grip and breathes shakily against her temple as her fingers skate lower and lower, to where his skin thins across his hips and his quads attach to his iliac crests. He grinds her name out when she gives the head of his cock the most featherlight of touches, and then presses a kiss to the corner of her mouth when she grips the shaft in a loose grip. When Clarke turns her head and gives his cock an encouraging jerk, Bellamy plunges his tongue into her mouth with a groan and thrusts shallowly into her fist.

The drums and singing are still going outside, covering up the sounds Clarke lets into the darkness of the cabin after Bellamy wrests her pants open and slips his hand inside. She's calling out nonsense while his fingers trip over her clit again and again and barely hears him tell her how wet she is. Her world goes sideways; but it's really just Bellamy lowering her to the mattress and pulling away with a curse.

She cracks her eyes through her haze of stalled pleasure and sees Bellamy messing with the fire that has inexplicably started to die. The warm light outlines his silhouette and highlights the dips and rises of his muscles. Clarke's mouth waters and she slips her hand to where he'd been working, picking up where he'd left off. Once the flames crackle merrily again, he turns back and curses when he sees her topless on his blankets and furs, blonde hair strewn about her and one hand down the front of her pants.

In an instant, he's at her feet, pulling her boots off, then her pants, leggings, and underwear all in one fell swoop, both of them breaking into laughs when he yanks a bit too hard and ends up on his ass. Clarke chokes on her giggle, though, when he tosses a knee over her shoulder and flattens his tongue on her clit.

"Like that?" he asks after doing it again and she keens out loud. He doesn't wait for an answer though, spreads her open and licks into her with firm strokes. "God, Clarke, I've barely started and you're dripping." He makes positively _obscene_ sounds down there, sucking and lapping at her cunt. Clarke rolls herself onto her elbows and watches his head bob and swerve between her thighs. His cheeks hollow when he's working her clit and when he slides his fingers in, Clarke thinks she might be able to see the back of her skull.

Bellamy shifts up to kiss her belly and her sternum, letting his fingers do the work for a minute. His tongue swirls on her nipple in time to his thumb on her clit and Clarke feels herself slipping towards the edge. His name falls from her lips in a stutter and he pulls on her wrist until her arms slips out from underneath her and she's back on her back again. Her head rolls on the bearskin under her and she watches the smoke rise out of his roof with unfocused eyes, holds Bellamy's hand to her breast and feels his fingers pluck and roll her nipple. Through all of it is Bellamy's tongue tight on her clit and his fingers twisting inside her and then the tightness snaps and her back arches and she feels the current roll down her limbs and over her tongue and through her eyes—

He turns her while she's still loosey-goosey, tugging on her knees and shoulders until she's stretched the right way, then flops down beside her with his head on his hand while she blinks the fuzziness from her eyes. "Good, right?" he asks, somewhat rhetorically, and traces the wings of her clavicle with his free hand. "You didn't know what you were turning down that morning, did you?"

Clarke rolls her eyes, remembering his sleepy offer murmured over her shoulder while on a hunting trip, the sunrise turning the walls of their tent pink. "Clearly. Though maybe—" she starts, giving him a wink "—I was holding out for a new cloak."

"If that's what it took, I would have had you kitted out for winter months ago."

Clarke wraps an arm around his neck and pulls him down for a long kiss, starting lazy and picking up energy as Bellamy runs a hand from her breast to her flank and back again in long, smooth passes. Clarke arches up when he traces light circles around the peak of her nipple. "Don't tease."

With a chuckle, Bellamy rolls his hips to press his cock into her thigh. "Believe me, Princess, I'm not teasing."

"Oh, I wasn't talking about you." Brow arched, Clarke covers his hand with hers and sighs when he takes the hint and caresses her with a firmer stroke.

"I should have known you would be bossy in bed."

She snakes a hand down between them and wraps her other hand around his cock. "Yeah, it seems like a real turn off for you." His eyelids flutter when she twists her wrist and his lips part when she does it again. "C'mere." She lets go to tug on his shoulder and arch up to kiss the corner of his mouth. "I want you on top."

He turns into her mouth as he slips between her thighs, kissing her slowly and more gently than Clarke had thought he would. (She's thought about it, of course. By herself, in her own dark cabin, under her blankets.) It's all lips and the barest hint of tongue, even when he presses his hips down, down, down until the sweet pressure and stretch of it is too much and Clarke tips her head back into the furs and blankets and moans.

Bellamy's back flexes under her fingers; his hips roll into hers a second time. "Fuck," he hisses, and hisses it again in time with his next thrust. The words slither down her spine to where they joint and she curls her fingers to press her nails into his skin. "Is this good?"

"Yeah." The weight of him over her, the slide of his cock, the sound of his voice in his ear – _good_ isn't the way Clarke would describe it but it's not necessarily wrong. She hikes her knees up higher until the head of his cock bumps against the front of her cunt as he thrusts and she exhales a breath in a high-pitched whine. "Oh, _god_."

His hand slips behind her knee, pushes it back even further and slips his forearm through, and he catches her moan in his mouth. "Like that, princess?" Her hips buck—at his gravelly voice or the name, she doesn't know, nor does she have the thoughts to spare at the moment—and Bellamy chuckles and groans all in one sound. "You're still _so_ wet. Please tell me you're always this wet."

Clarke's cheeks warm. She knows how slick she is, she can _hear_ it for god's sake. But Bellamy stares down at her with his dark curls falling over his forehead like she's his first drink of water after three days in the woods. "I was ready for you," she finally replies, and repeats his words from a earlier. "I wanted you. I want you."

He kisses her, deep and thorough, and pushes her thigh back even further until he's fucking her as deep as he can get. Clarke is sandwiched between Bellamy and his bed in the best way possible and she clutches at the back of his neck to keep his mouth at her ear while he tells her all manner of sweet and filthy things about how good and hot she feels, how soft she is, how he wants to taste her again before morning, how it's probably good he never tried to fuck her with his fingers before because he wouldn't have been able to get the feel of her out of his mind…

For her part, it's the best she can do to hold on for the ride. Bellamy is a force of nature once he gets going, rolling her to her side until she pants and covers her eyes with her hand, then to her knees, where she clenches fistfuls of blankets and bucks back against him. They end up on their stomachs, where Clarke's hand makes tight, trapped circles against her clit and Bellamy's shallow thrusts between her closed thighs are his undoing. He groans and rolls to his back beside Clarke; with one eye open (the other being closed against the blankets), she hazily watches his shoulder flex and then his head presses back into the pillow and his mouth drops open with a groan.

His cheeks are pink and his curls damp against his temples; the firelight still dances along the smooth planes of his muscles. Next time, Clarke wants to sit on top of him and run her hands all along that skin without having to use the pretense of a medical exam. _Sit on top_…Clarke's mind drifts higher, and so do her eyes, landing on his parted lips. _Oh, __**yes**_.

When Bellamy looks down to clean himself off with a not-Clarke-owned piece of clothing, he notices her arm flexing where it disappears under her stomach. "Enjoying the view?" he asks, following her line of sight to his bare chest. He turns to his side and reaches out, but she rolls back and away from him.

"Lie back down," she tells him, voice tight.

"As the princess commands," Bellamy says, flopping back down. He reaches one arm behind his head so that he can watch her more easily. Her eyes dance along his body, to his face, and back down again, until her eyes flutter closed and she comes with a shudder.

Her body is still humming contentedly when she feels Bellamy sit up and pull a blanket over them, then a fur. His body has already started to cool a bit, so she shivers when his hands settle on her waist and he tugs her into his side. "Let me know when you get cold; we can go down a few layers," he murmurs against her temple when she rolls into him and slides her thigh over his.

His heart beats steady and strong under her ear. "Ruben said it looked like it was going to be a cold winter," she murmured, meaning the healer of the Shenandoah clan. Bellamy hums in agreement; he'd been reported streams icing over earlier than in the past two years. "We could…sleep together, you know. To stay warm."

"Ms. Griffin, are you using my body for your own purposes?" Bellamy covers his mouth with a hand in false shock, and Clarke swats at his chest, insisting that it came out wrong and he knows what she means. Ignoring her squeals, Bellamy rolls on top of her and chases her laughing mouth until her giggles are covered up by his kisses and the drum beats outside.

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><p>[It <em>is<em> a cold winter; the coldest they've had on Earth by far. But Bellamy and Clarke pull the blankets over their heads at night and keep each other quite warm.]

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><p>Hope you ~enjoyed!~ Please drop a comment - I love hearing from everyone! I also blog on tumblr with the same handle as my penname - come find me there. :)<p> 


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